Ok, here's the word about Pursley's involvement with the Apogee Saturn's, straight from John himself (from an e-mail I received today):

[Quote]
My first involvement with Tim at Apogee was at, I believe, a NARCON or some kind of gathering where he saw or was aware of my 1/72 scale Saturn efforts and the level of detailing I was implementing. We chatted for a bit and he asked if I would be interested in helping him out with the upcoming kits. The most obvious area that I could help with were the various stringer and corrugation wraps as well as assorted external detailing such as fins and the like. Mike Dorffler had already by this time been doing work for Tim on the Saturns and, as I understand it, had done the work in designing and getting the molds produced for the injection molded parts for both kits. He had also produced a series of 3D CAD drawings for the potential production of the vacuform molds for the wraps using 3D lithography or some other rapid prototyping process. For whatever reason, those molds were not produced. I had nothing to do with the injection molding part of the kits.



I produced the vacuform molds for all the wraps on both kits from producing the original scale working drawings to machining the components that went in to each mold master. These were masters (which I still have) that were made exclusively for Apogee in 1/70 scale and were not from my 1/72 model efforts. I also did a bit of R&D work and came up with the underlying balsa structure design for the fin shrouds and the “plug in” fins for the Saturn V. I provided a number of replacement forms over a span of two or so years since the originals would become deformed with repeated use. I suggested going to masters made from metal or some other more heat-resistant material but nothing became of that. Not to take all the credit on the forms that I provided… Tim would have to sit with each one after they were delivered to him and meticulously decide based on his experience with his vacuformer just where to drill the hundreds of tiny surface holes in each form that were required to assure that the vacuforming process could pull the plastic as deeply as possible between the stringers and other recesses. Plus, he had to make sure that these tiny holes penetrated into the invisible channels I provided within the mold that were vented to the back of the mold so that “vacuum” could make it to the tiny holes.



I also developed the artwork for the decals and some of the documentation as well as providing the many hundreds of sets of fins and external resin parts that actually went into the kit boxes for the first couple of years. There was one exception. After my initial production of fins for the Saturn V those were produced by someone else but I produced all the Saturn IB fins for the first couple of years (so far as I know).



I had nothing to do with the actual design of the basic kits or how they went together other than mentioned above. I actually came in very late in the game and was only involved with what I stated above.



Other than producing a couple of runs of decals for one or two Apogee kits seven or eight years ago, I have had no other involvement with Apogee or their kits.
[End of Quote]

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Dave, NAR # 21853 SR.

Well, there you have it. Thanks for clearing it up with John.

That doesn't conflict with what I heard, like I mentioned we were discussing injection molds and CAD work. Our discussion never drifted onto the vacuformed wraps.

Also, again it was the injection molds that I was told caused the financial strain.

Actually, I didn't e-mail John first; "someone" in this thread did and John then e-mailed me
his reply, which I copied and pasted in full in my previous post. Nevertheless, it's very interesting to learn about stuff like this .

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Dave, NAR # 21853 SR.

One thing I’d like to add. Here is a link to a page from John Pursley’s website. It mentions his interest in rocketry and scale models, then gets into his career. His knowledge of the Saturn-V led to quite an interesting time the last few years, and I am not talking about the Apogee kits (something 70 times bigger).

http://www.accur8.com/aboutme.htm

From that page you can find out more about some of his scale models, tips, and other things.

- George Gassaway